|
Personal
Recommendation regarding Steven Collins, Licensed
Acupuncturist and the efficacy of acupuncture for our child
From:
The grateful parents of Ben, a 9 year old Severely Autistic child on
the
journey to healing
To:
Those who are seeking Steven Collins as an acupuncture practitioner and
provide
themselves and their loved ones with holistic care that has life
changing
benefits in a remarkably expedient way that utilizes your own inner
power to
achieve balance.
Steve is a rare healer, teacher and advocate, as
well as,
an accomplished medical practitioner that embodies his beliefs in not
only
Oriental medicine, but in providing respectful affirmation to the whole
person.
His honest and abundant nurturing nature we believe is felt by our
child, who
due to the walls of autism has difficulty in being touched or to sit
still or
even to communicate. Yet Steve can treat Ben with ease and compassion.
After
the first session we noted profound overall changes and
after 6 sessions he is making great strides in multiple areas of
dysfunction disturbance and his outward signs of pain are
so diminished that he is running on both his feet and his flexion in
his feet/
heel cords are almost normal. The doctors are amazed at what a
difference it
has made in the 2 months of treatment. We await the films to prove
his foot is completely healed. At this point we are not even
contemplating surgery any longer.
Steve's dedication and manner have made it
possible for Ben to progress to lying still with multiple
needles in various placements for up
to 20 to 30 minutes at a time. We believe very few practitioners
would have the skill, competency and intuitive healing ability to work
with our
son and we look forward to seeing further improvement in his well
being,
balance and health and believe that Steve will give us the prognosis
and
directives to help us make mature informed choices about after care.
Our
story is no different from any other parents who have children with
profound
disabilities and have sought and tried a pantheon of western medical
services
and therapies who had all but given up on him even being able to be
maintained
in a home environment in the years to come.
Through
persistence and seeking other opinions we found our child had an
orthopedic
cause and a GI medical cause for some of his extreme behaviors and
coping
mechanisms that people just attributed to his just being "Profoundly
Autistic" He also has sleep, emotional and behavioral disturbances and
is
potty training plus being encumbered by the physical discomforts we
discussed
above.
Once
the x-rays (which no orthopedist/MDs had wanted to even "try" to take
until we made multiple demands) were taken it was discovered that he
for
several years (they felt after seeing the films) had had a necrosis and
fracture to his foot.
Due
to the alteration in pain perception "supposedly autistic people do not
experience severe pain" the doctors felt that no pain medication was
necessary. We disagreed and chose a new path to wellness.
We
thus sought alternative cares and to our joy and astonishment they are
working
better and in many different aspects than we could have ever hoped for.
Acupuncture
seemed very daunting for an autistic child, but after research and much
thought
we really wanted it as one of his major cares for relief of his far
reaching
orthopedic problems. He also for years had heel cord/flexion tension
that no
type or amount of therapy was effecting and was a candidate in the
coming
years for bilateral foot surgeries due to the impact on his
gait/walking and
ability to participate in any sports or athletics.
He
has had major sleep and chewing/oral stimulation/teeth grinding
problems for
years. After acupuncture Ben experienced pain relief and our child
shows very
little of this any longer. His eye contact verbalizations are improving
and he
has begun not just swimming but diving and using kicking with his
strokes and
has much improved motor planning and coordination. His demeanor is much
more
relaxed and his tolerance to focus on activities is improving greatly.
He even
jet skied and participated in other activities that prior he would have
been
fearful or guarded against.
Our
son is blossoming and one of the only major differences we have made is
acupuncture. We think due to Steve's engaging manner of rendering his
care & expertise Ben is empowered to
facilitate his unique journey to well being and expression of himself
and this
brings us hope and the validation to keep optimizing his standards of
care we
can for our son versus settling for minimizing his needs for quality
comprehensive care that just maintains his basic health.
-Mrs.
Lori L., RN
|
